Iconochasms

We hope you're happy with the personalities that The Political Compass has placed you closest to; but how well do you really know the famous figures that you love or love to hate?

This little wrap-up quiz offers some important facts that were barely, if ever, reported. It may raise your eyebrows and adjust the pedestals on which you placed some of your favourite icons. The chasm may be greater than you'd imagined.

1)
Who wrote of the "impeccable economic logic" of dumping the West's health-impairing toxic waste in "under polluted" Africa because the resultant cancers wouldn't have time to develop in a population with such a low life expectancy?

Lawrence Summers
Ralph Nader
Robert Redford
Hillary Clinton

Lawrence Summers, as Chief Econonomist for the World Bank, in a leaked memo, December 12,1991. Brazil's Environment Minister, Jose Lutzenburger, wrote to Summers that his proposal was "perfectly logical but totally insane". Lutzenburger was fired for writing the letter. Summers went on to greater things, initially as Treasury Secretary in the final 18 months of the Clinton administration, and now as Barak Obama's Chair of the National Economic Council.

2)
Who wrote: When the Know-Nothings get control, it [the Declaration of Independence] will read: "All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy

Jerry Fallwell
Abraham Lincoln
John F. Kennedy
Newt Gingrich

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Joshua F Speed, August 24, 1855, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

3)
Who in 1997 championed the privatisation of California's National Oil Reserve, and the subsequent drilling by Occidental that resulted in serious environmental damage, destruction to a sacred Indian burial ground and a windfall for his family trust's Occidental stocks? (Occidental also put a pipeline through the Colombian rain forest.)

Robert Redford
Al Gore
Ralph Nader
David Cobb

Al Gore, as US Vice President

4)
Who described the UK's decision to join the US invasion of Iraq as in the British national economic interest?

Eric Hobsbawm
David Hare
Gordon Brown
Glenda Jackson

Gordon Brown in The Scotsman, 4 May 2005 p.4

5)
Who said I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state?

George Churchill-Coleman, former head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad
William E.Colby, former Director of the C.I.A.
Joe Clark, former Prime Minister of Canada
Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the U.K

George Churchill-Coleman on the U.K., reported in The Guardian January 28, 2005

6)
Which US Republican president wrote this?Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Dwight D.Eisenhower
Richard Nixon
George Bush Snr
Gerald Ford

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a letter to his brother Edgar on November 8, 1954

7)
Who, commenting on the deaths of more than half a million children, said I think that this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it?

Yasser Arafat
Madeleine Albright
Pandit Nehru
Ayotollah Kohmeini

Madeleine Albright, as US Ambassador to the United Nations, on the 60 Minutes TV programme, 12 May, 1996 She was responding to the finding of a United Nations FAO report that 567000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of sanctions. Eight months later, Bill Clinton appointed her Secretary of State.

8)
Who said that the introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals?

Henry Kissinger
Dick Cheney
Paul Wolfowitz
Donald Rumsfeld

Henry Kissinger, as Secretary of State in the Ford administration, 1976. Nevertheless the other three all held key national security posts in the same administration, which endorsed Iranian plans for a massive nuclear energy industry. Further, it encouraged a multi-billion dollar deal that would have allowed Iran control of enormous amounts of plutonium and enriched uranium.

9)
Who signed legislation permitting doctors to remove the life support system of patients in a persistent vegetative state, regardless of the wishes of the family?

George W.Bush
Ronald Reagan
Jesse Helms
Jeb Bush

George W.Bush, as Governor of Texas in 1999

10)
Who (1) worked for Senator McCarthy during his red witch hunts and (2) permitted J.Edgar Hoover to wiretap Martin Luther King ?

J.K. Galbraith
Robert Kennedy
George McGovern
Ted Kennedy

Robert Kennedy (1) as McCarthy's Junior Counsel and (2) as Attorney General

11)
These so-called ill-treatments and torturing in concentration camps, stories of which were spread everywhere amongst the people, and particularly by detainees who were liberated by the occupying armies, were not, as assumed, inflicted methodically, but by individual leaders, sub-leaders, and men who laid violent hands on them.Who made that statement?

Rudolf Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz until 1943, in his post-war testimony

12)
Who proposed thatWhosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least?

Oliver Cromwell
Thomas Jefferson
Mao Tse Tung
Christopher Columbus

Thomas Jefferson, in the Virginia Bill number 64, 18 June 1779

13)
Who held that spiritual characteristics are tied to skin colour and that non-white skin colour is a sign of spiritual defects that would be expunged in a future race war?

Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Valentino
Rudolf Nureyev

Rudolf Steiner, in a lecture to an anthroposophist audience in Stuttgart, 1915 The lecture is in Die geistigen Hintergründe des Ersten Weltkrieges, Dornach 1974 pp30-54

14)
Who saidShort of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war?

Henry Kissinger
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon
Ronald Reagan

Richard Nixon Real Peace 1983

15)
Who wrote in 1928 thatIt may be shrewdly forecast that no man will exhibit dimensions of permanent greatness equal to Mussolini?

The Vatican Ambassador to Germany
The US Ambassador to Italy
The Soviet Union Ambassador to the League of Nations
The UK Ambassador to Italy

US Ambassador to Italy, Richard Washburn Child, in his preface to Mussolini's autobiography

16)
Immediately following the German invasion of the USSR, which future US President said the following?If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way we let them kill as many as possible.

Harry Truman
Richard Nixon
Jimmy Carter
John Kennedy

Harry Truman, New York Times, June 24 1941

17)
Who said Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed; those who are cold and are not clothed?

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Dwight D.Eisenhower
John Major
Jimmy Carter

President Dwight D.Eisenhower, in The Chance for Peace, a speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16 1953

18)
Who said I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature … Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion?To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world.?

Hillary Clinton
Thomas Edison
Charles de Gaulle
Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia

19)
Who said Japan was already defeated … dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was no longer necessary to save American lives?

General Patton
General Eisenhower
General MacArthur
Charles Lindberg

General Dwight D.Eisenhower, in The White House Years:Mandate for Change 1953-1956: A Personal Account (1963) p.312-313

20)
Who accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle — the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on foreigners — in July 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria?

Henry Ford. (The following month a senior executive of General Motors, James Mooney, received a similar medal for his "distinguished services to the Reich".)

21)
With reference to Tiger Woods' first Golf Masters win, who said there'll be a spectacular increase in the number of black boys (and I do mean boys - teenagers) who begin to infest the public courses in America?

O. J. Simpson
Alistair Cooke
Mel Gibson
Naomi Klein

Alistair Cooke in his BBC Letter from America, May 2, 1997

22)
Who presented Chairman Mao Tse Tung with a bouquet of poems that lavishly praised the Chinese leader as the timely rain to nourish the land?

Nancy Reagan
The Dalai Lama
Pope John XXIII
Robert Frost

The Dalai Lama, on his first meeting with Mao in Beijing (then Peking) in 1954

23)
Who blocked the marriage of his son and disowned him, commenting How can I, who has always advocated renunciation of sex, encourage you to gratify it?(The son subsequently became a homeless alcoholic.)

Gautama Buddha
Martin Luther King
Albert Schweitzer
Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi, dealing with his son Harilal.

24)
Which founding father said of the proposed American Constitution This is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism … when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other ?

Benjamin Franklin
Alexander Hamilton
Thomas Paine
George Washington

Benjamin Franklin in a speech to delegates to the US Constitutional Convention prior to the final vote, on 17 September 1787.

25)
Who said The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success. I'm not sure that I would as of today push it as hard as I once did.?

Margaret Thatcher
Milton Friedman
Ludwig von Mises
Friedrich Hayek

Milton Friedman in Financial Times (UK) June 7, 2003

26)
Who said of Saddam Hussein He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours ?

Colin Powell
Donald Rumsfeld
Dick Cheney
Bill Clinton

Colin Powell in February 2001

27)
Who said of containment against Saddam Hussein We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt?

Richard Perle
John Bolton
Paul Wolfovitz
Condoleezza Rice

Condoleezza Rice in July 2001

28)
Who said: I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed?

Winston Churchill
Albert Einstein
Mahatma Gandhi
George Orwell

Mahatma Gandhi, May 1940

29)
Who said: I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes … to spread a lively terror ?

Albert Schweizer
Winston Churchill
Princess Diana
Ché Guevara

Winston Churchill, writing as President of the Air Council, in 1919

30)
Who granted several audiences to, and received a donation of more than $1 million from Shoko Asahara, leader of the Supreme Truth cult of Japan, and spreader of sarin gas in the Tokyo subway?

The Dalai Lama
Pope John Paul II
George Carey, as Archbishop of Canterbury
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The Dalai Lama, in 1982

31)
Which politician travelled to Indonesia and received a $10 million donation from dictator Suharto to help party funds, while avoiding criticism of Indonesia's repressive policies, including political imprisonment?

Margaret Thatcher
Fidel Castro
Nelson Mandela
Tony Blair

Nelson Mandela, in October 1990, six months after his own release from prison

32)
Who warned of the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the US military-industrial complex and its potential to endanger liberties and the democratic processes ?

President Eisenhower, in his Final Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961

33)
With reference to World War One, who said: If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable (as Hitler) to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations ?

General Montgomery
Winston Churchill
King George VI
Bertrand Russell

Winston Churchill, in his Great Contemporaries, 1937

34)
Who was an enthusiastic and uncritical guest of the dictatorships of Haiti and Albania, and the phalangists in Lebanon?

Jane Fonda
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Princess Diana
The Dalai Lama

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

35)
Who referred to the Munich chapter of the German Communist Party as chaotic, filthy and full of Jews?

Eugenio Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII quoted in Hitler's Pope by John Cornwell, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and Senior Research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, UK

36)
With reference to the US conquest and annexation of a third of Mexico, who said: What has miserable, inefficient Mexico to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race?

Walt Whitman
Mark Twain
Henry Thoreau
Edgar Allan Poe

Walt Whitman

37)
Who urged suspicious attention to any proposed new law or regulation that comes from businessmen, because they have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public?

Henry Ford
Bill Gates
Adam Smith
Milton Friedman

Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations

38)
Who wrote of God: He says naïvely, outspokenly and without suggestion of embarrassment "I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God." It is only another way of saying "I, the Lord thy God, am a small God; fretful about small things"?

Billy Graham
General Patton
Mark Twain
Jerry Springer

Mark Twain, in Letters from the Earth

39)
Who declared homosexuality to be immoral and disgusting ?

Emma Goldman
Germaine Greer
Eleanor Roosevelt
Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand, at her Ford Hall appearance, 1971

40)
Who said this ?

To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero … assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability.

Tony Blair
George Bush Snr
Henry Kissinger
Charlton Heston

George Bush Snr, in A World Transformed, 1998

41)
Who paid an official visit to China, described Beijing as ghastly and warned a group of foreign students If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed?

Ronald Reagan
The Duke of Edinburgh
Jacques Chirac
Richard Branson

The Duke of Edinburgh, 1986

42)
Who demonised Jews and urged the destruction of their synagogues and houses, the seizing of their valuables and the denial of their prayer books and passports?

Martin Luther
Thomas Paine
St. Francis
Oliver Cromwell

Martin Luther, in his 1543 pamphlet Concerning the Jews and their Lies

43)
Who expressed humanitarian abhorrence of the death penalty, declaring that to kill a man in a paroxysm of passion is understandable, but to have him killed by someone else after calm and serious meditation and on the pretext of duty honourably discharged is incomprehensible?

Ivan the Terrible
The Marquis deSade
Rasputin
Benito Mussolini

The Marquis deSade

44)
Who, commenting on World War Two, said: Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs?

Mahatma Gandhi
Leonard Cohen
Nelson Mandela
John Lennon

Mahatma Gandhi, on absolute non-violence, speaking to biographer Louis Fisher in June 1946.

45)
Which country elected a World War II fascist war criminal (Class A) as a peacetime leader?

Germany
Japan
Italy
Croatia

Japan: Tojo cabinet minister Nobusuke Kishi became Prime Minister in 1957, eight years after his release from prison.

46)
Which faith still requires its ministers/priests to condone capital punishment?

Tibetan Buddhism
Church of England
Roman Catholicism
Unitarianism

Church of England. Its 37th Article, to which all priests assent, holds that the Laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and grevious offences.

47)
Who described Benito Mussolini as that admirable Italian gentleman?

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ernest Hemingway
Dorothy Parker
Humphrey Bogart

Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933

48)
Which faith organisation warned that the acquisition and practice of music is unfavourable to the health of the soul?

Unitarians
Buddhists
Quakers
Jains

Quakers, at their UK Yearly Meeting, 1846

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